Line managing someone who talks about "pregnant people" - how to gently tell her to use "woman"?

I'd probably put this in my risk log, and my mitigation would be to always refer to the funding wording when producing any documentation and when promoting the project.

The original application used 'pregnant women'.

Then you would be at risk if you published anything that isn't funded by this project. Anyone could put a claim in that the funding wasn't being used for that project and if I was the fund manager that had given you the money [which was my last job before retiring] then I'd potentially not pay you for anything that wasn't spent on the project for pregnant women during a quarterly audit.

So you have a cast iron reason for everything relating to the funding you have been given to refer directly to the wording in the bid.

Ok, I'm back to correct myself. I didn't realise it was going in a publication. I thought it was the spoken word. I'd refer to the corporate guidelines on language and use what has been agreed at policy level.

I work in a large commercial organisation. They absolutely compel my speech at work. I'm expected to be 'on brand'. The people who hold the purse will always prefer certain language.
I also think it's important that the word woman is not erased. Footnotes are perfect in this instance.

I couldn't get riled up about a collegue saying pregnant people if I tried.

I wouldn't micromanage people to this degree.

I'm not going to tell you how to gently get her to speak how you want her to. I'm going to say you need to get over it.

If it's a serious research paper, use the term 'pregnant woman' and if it's a nonsensical, ideologically driven end-of-year waste of surplus funding, 'pregnant people.' The second option, however, still has major professional repercussions on all involved because even if female erasure is still somehow popular in certain groups it won't be for much longer and adhering to it will negatively affect reputations.

(As an aside, the word 'mother' is child-centred terminology used to define their relationship with others. It is extremely inappropriate and narcissistic to replace it with 'birthing parent' as though special identities are to be treated as more important than the baby)

Will the research by published? I think there a few issues.

This terminilogy disadavantages women with learning disabilities or whose first language is not English. It is not inclusive.

It is getting increasingly hard to come by information pertaining to women if we have to search online for "women, girls, people, menstruator, uterus haver," etc. It makes it hard for women to find up to date information on issues affecting them.

It is bad marketing for her research and might influence how successful the research project will be.

Non-binary people and trans men are still biologically women.

@Peonies12 Good for you, but I know women and girls who struggle with pronouns and this terminology. This kind of language language negatively impacts people who find processing language difficult. Why do you think your view is more important than their real life struggles and disadvantage?

Every time they mention 'pregnant people' I'd just reply like you're agreeing but always answer back using women. For example 'this will be good for the pregnant people' you can be like 'yes I think you're right pregnant women would like that well done' you can just feign ignorance then if it gets brought up to someone else.

OP, do you yourself use "women" in everyday discussion about the project, and in more formal communication (ie agenda and minutes)?

I work in a university STEM department which currently has a couple of projects relating to pregnancy; the lead academics use "women", "mothers" and "maternal" confidently and casually. They are however male and senior though.

If you are publishing papers you should be clear and consistent from the start that you will add a disclaimer about different identities, but refer to research subjects as women thereafter. The Australian paper mentioned upthread about the C19 research that deleted the offensive term "women" and replaced it with "people" is a shocking example of scientific accuracy being trashed by well-meaning ideology.

I think a lot depends on why she is using the phrase 'pregnant people' herself. Some have been told (or had it drilled into them) that is the fair and inclusive way to speak. I know I've struggled with work because of being pulled up for using 'non inclusive language'. If your colleague has been through something like that in the past, it may be that she's scared to use 'women' instead.

Best thing to do there though is to keep using 'women' yourself so she knows it's safe to say it. It could take some time before she is comfortable with it though.

The world has gone mad. Tell her woman find this alienating and use the term pregnant women. We should not live in fear of being shamed for this.

They can call them pregnant people if they wisĥ . They arent doing anything wrong other than you don't like it. It's not a thing to be line managed

Absolutely not, it's nonsensical. " Women and pregnant people" turns "woman" into a perceived identity rather than a sex. So hardly inclusive but rather a full-blown capitulation to the Butler Youth.

This person is a contributor on a research project OP is in charge of. So contrary to your claim, it is indeed OP's right - indeed, responsibility - to ensure consistency of concepts and terminology.

According to that logic, "pregnant mammals" would be "technically correct" as well. Or possibly "pregnant vertebrates?"

I volunteered for a women's rights group called sister supporter, about protecting women from "pro life" protesters outside the clinic.

They used words like "pregnant people" mainly because many of them were uni students.

I made a point of saying "women and girls" in all my conversations and actually, they just all went along with that. I think they just needed permission from an older woman to speak properly

The vast majority are women? Who on earth are the rest? This nonsense speak just makes people sound ridiculous.

Ask her to use 'women and pregnant people'? Still inclusive but centres the fact that the vast majority of people who give birth are women, who still face disadvantages in the health system?

This. Is it really worth it?

Just explain how the RSPB use the word women to mean a whole group of people with a range of identities and that if it’s okay with them then it should be okay everywhere else. 😀

Why include a group of people that can’t ever get pregnant as well? That’s makes no sense.

Would you be equally comfortable if she said pregnant people, sacks of spuds and traffic cones? It includes women so surely you support that too?

Good for you. I'm also pregnant, and find the term 'pregnant people' degrading, to the point that I've raised it with both my midwife and consultant. Does your 'very happy' trump my 'insulted' just because you don't care, or like to please others (men). Similarly, I am not a 'birthing person' I am my childs MOTHER.

This perhaps, for me, comes from a place of believing that I was medically unable to become and sustain a pregnancy for almost two decades, which on some level made me (rightly or wrongly) feel inferior to other women whose body worked 'correctly' regardless of if they wanted it to perform that particular function. Motherhood was something I could only dream of (or so I thought) and something I relish in now. Being referred to as a 'pregnant person' or a 'birthing person' is as damaging to my MH as potentially being referred to as a woman (which is biologically accurate) is to a trans woman, so why do their 'needs' trump mine.

OP, I had a similar issue when submitting an academic paper which explored the roles of women in a particular context. Footnotes were my friend, as has been suggested by others. I also think it's wrong to shy away from these tough debates, especially in academia, it's exactly what academia is for!

Men and women can be tall, men and women can be blonde, only women can be pregnant.

For the people (ha!) above saying it's "not incorrect"... well, sometimes it results in incorrect comparisons, advice, statistics, policy...

For example:

Replacing a word with another of different meaning as if they are synonyms makes communications inaccurate or confusing. For example, in a growing number of papers, the severity of COVID-19 disease in pregnant women is being misrepresented by comparing “pregnant people” to “non-pregnant people” (40, 85–92) when the comparator in the research in question is “non-pregnant females.” Given the greater severity of COVID-19 disease in males (93), this misrepresentation means readers may under-estimate disease severity in pregnant women. Highly regarded organizations like the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (40) and the Australian Department of Health (85) have made this error, and research containing this error has been published in the eminent New England Journal of Medicine (86). In the Australian Department of Health case, the mistake appeared when a previously published document was updated and a seemingly simple and innocuous “find and replace” undertaken with the word “women” switched with “people.” This change made the statistics on disease severity incorrect (see Supplementary Material 1 for further details). Carelessness may partly explain such errors, but there appears to be no easy way to straightforwardly communicate scientific information about female reproduction without using sexed terms. The misrepresentation of research and health communication during a pandemic ought to raise serious concern about how inappropriately desexing language can undermine public health.

And also:

Desexed language can make it unclear who is being referred to. Does “breastfeeding people” mean mothers, infants or both? Are “postnatal people” those who have just given birth or those who are providing postnatal care? Using the phrase “breastfeeding parents” rather than “breastfeeding mothers” or “women,” both suggests the partner is participating in the act of breastfeeding and makes invisible the sex of the person breastfeeding the child. In this way, desexed language obscures the practical and power imbalances in relationships, decision making, and economics that breastfeeding mothers may face because they are female (98–102). Similarly, avoiding references to “girls” means that their very specific vulnerabilities as pregnant minors or minor mothers may be overlooked (103, 104). A mixture of sexed and desexed terminology within the same document can be particularly confusing [e.g. (105–107)]. Assisted reproductive technologies which can separate the genetic, gestational and social contributions to parenting increase the importance of accurate language rather than obscuring matters by using internally contradictory phrases such as “female sperm” as an example (108). We would argue that using “female” to describe a biologically male person with the gender identity of “woman” is inappropriate and that in order to accurately denote the sexes, “male” and female” should be retained as wholly sexed terms (109).

These quotes are from Gribble et al,